Smoothie FAIL

When the weather's warm and I'm trying to eat healthfully, I frequently treat myself to a fruit smoothie for breakfast. Due to my human nature, I am a big fan of chocolate milkshakes, and in fact my very first smoothie was a chocolate-banana concoction entitled "Funky Monkey." Although my 17 year-old self snickered while ordering "one Funky Monkey, please," I so relished that smoothie that I became a regular. A chocolate smoothie is in my opinion a lot like a chocolate milkshake but healthier and more flavorful (I know that Julia, an ice cream aficionado, is frowning in disbelief at this…apologies!). But I don't make myself chocolate smoothies for breakfast. When I lived in Israel one summer, it was so hot in the mornings that I repeatedly tried to have chocolate ice cream for breakfast, and it would always make me sick to my stomach. So regretfully I have given up attempting chocolate for breakfast.

My usual smoothie recipe for 1 person goes something like this:

Smoothie

1/2 banana in chunks
1/2 cup frozen fruit (my favorites are peaches, blueberries, or strawberries)
vanilla soymilk poured in the blender up to the level of the top of the fruit
a touch of orange or pineapple juice to give it a little acidity
optional: some plain yogurt to give body and a little roughness

Put all in blender. Pulse on the highest level in short spurts to keep hard frozen chunks from clogging up the blade. Make sure it's all smooth and well-mixed; you might need to wield a rubber scraper to move large chunks around.

George, I should note, does not like his smoothies with vanilla soymilk. He prefers just yogurt and juice. George's tribal-anarchist cousin Andy adds granola to his smoothies.

Anyway, this morning I was whipping up a quick smoothie for myself. When I started pouring the rich creamy smoothness down my throat, I almost spit it out again. I had substituted grapefruit juice for orange juice by accident, and I loathe grapefruit juice. So yes, I screwed up a smoothie. I attempted to procrastinate by writing a blog post. Now I'm finished and I have to drink up my awful smoothie because there are children starving in Zimbabwe.

Mexican Lasagna

Lasagna. Gooey, brick-thick, brightly striped with oozing cheese and succulent ground meat. Everyone loves lasagna for the same reasons that make it a healthy vegetarian's nightmare. When I was twenty I began teaching myself to cook, and one of the first things I attempted was vegetarian lasagna. At the time I was renting a room in a house, and I was allotted one half of one shelf of the refrigerator plus two hours of kitchen time per week. Lasagna seemed perfect for that sort of situation: quick, filling, and rectangular.

The first incarnation of a long series of vegetarian lasagna failures was tofu-garlic lasagna with whole wheat noodles. At that time I did not know how to drain tofu and my first few lasagnas were watery and bland. The recipe writer's idea was that people wouldn't realize that one layer has less cheese in it if you mix the cheese with something flavorful and substantial like tofu and raw garlic. People realize. I realized. It was pretty gross. But I ate it anyway—I was 20.

I also put too much sauce in. I would just pour it over the noodles for each layer, and even after the tofu was banished I would end up with lasagna soup. Some angelic individual (whom I have forgotten) taught me to space out spoonfuls of sauce and then smear the excess over bare spots. Lately some eaters have been telling me I don't have enough sauce. But they're still eating it, and I don't have to pick up a hot 9 x 13 and drain lasagna soup into the sink.

Once the tofu and garlic were exiled, the lasagna levels from the bottom up were:
noodle, sauce, kidney beans, cheese,
noodle, sauce, steamed vegetable, cheese,
noodle, sauce, cheese.

Unfortunately the kidney beans slipped out and lay around on the plate imitating baby cockroaches. If I mashed them a little bit first they stayed in better, but that meant more work. I tried to glue them in with cheese but then there was too much cheese to consider this anything but unhealthy. These lasagnas were of course delicious. People would vacuum up an entire lasagna in one meal.

I had gotten the hang of not breaking my whole wheat noodles while they boiled,and in fact no one ever noticed that they were whole wheat. But after I read an article in Vegetarian Times magazine about using tortillas instead of noodles for the lasagna, I never bought lasagna noodles again. Tortillas are so much faster, and I am so lazy and impatient. I use corn tortillas, which makes my lasagna gluten-free. The trick is to cut the tortillas in half so you can put a straight edge against the side of the baking dish. The tortillas can overlap or not, it totally doesn't matter.

My latest substitution was refried vegetarian beans for kidney beans. Refried beans are saltier, but they give you the gooey stickiness and heft you need if you want less cheese. Because I was using corn tortillas and refried beans, I switched from pasta sauce to enchilada sauce because hey, why not go all the way Mexican? I won't lie; my latest lasagna tasted a lot like enchiladas. But what's wrong with that? Olé!

Sarah's Mexican Lasagna

Lasagna layers, bottom to top:
corn tortillas, enchilada sauce, refried beans, partly steamed broccoli pieces,
corn tortillas, enchilada sauce, refried beans, partly steamed zucchini slices,
corn tortillas, enchilada sauce, a thick layer of shredded "Mexican" cheeses.

Preheat the oven to 375. Layer everything in a 9x13 glass baking dish. Cook about 40 minutes until cheese is bubbling and browning on top. Serve without apology.

Feedback So Far—
Julia: It's delicious!
Doug: It's worth the wait.
George: It's not bad. It's fine.
Lizzie: It's a success!
Me: It's a little too salty.

UPDATE: They liked it better a year later with sides/toppings of sliced fresh avocado, chopped cilantro, and Frank's Red Hot sauce.

Lemony Lentil Salad

Lentils become a different class of legume in the summer. No more hot and heavy soups or darkly fragrant dals. Now is the time for chilled salads. The Mediterranean seeps into our food, liberally sprinkling everything with lemon juice and olive oil.

Again I turned to Bittman's vegetarian cookbook; almost all my other cookbooks are in storage until I finish moving—and Vegetarian Times didn't inspire me with one recipe this month. I was seeking something with lemons in it. A few days ago George asked me if I had ever eaten a lemon, and it turns out that I had only sucked on one for puckering purposes. George said lemons taste like candy. He eats them as if they were oranges. Sweltering in the North Carolinian heat, we took a chilled lemon from our refrigerator and cut it into wedges. I bit into one and reeled from the burst of tartness and tang. It was Awesome.

So I was delighted to discover Bittman's recipe for lentil salad with chunks of lemon. The recipe calls for cooked lentils tossed with juice of 1 lemon plus chunks of lemony flesh from another lemon. Then you mix in shallot, capers, olive oil, salt, and pepper. It's important to toss the lentils with everything else while they're still hot from cooking so that they absorb everything. It tasted excellent while still warm—even George liked it, and he's been a picky puss lately. I thought it would taste even better after chilling.

I was wrong. It was ruined! The shallots just overwhelmed everything else with onion-ness. George said they should have been cooked. I could have poured boiling water over them or steamed them or sautéed them or something. Or maybe I should have just left them out. In any case, Beware the Onions.

Onion Salad

Tonight I tried to make one of the salads from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. I did try. Laziness and Impatience altered the recipe. Then the results weren't what I'd hoped (George handed his salad over to me, half-eaten), so I changed the recipe even more. Of course Doug ate the whole thing and said it was fabulous. Doug To The Rescue again.

Bittman's recipe called for mesclun greens, but I don't like buying my greens stored in plastic, and outside New Haven I can't find loose lettuce mixes like they sell in Berkeley. Plastic-stored greens give me that not-so-fresh feeling, so I bought heads of endive and red leaf and Boston lettuce instead. Bittman suggested dressing the greens with a Honey-Garlic Vinaigrette, but I shrugged and just squirted on some fresh lemon juice. George approved.

Meanwhile, I carmelized 2 onions and 2 shallots in some extra virgin olive oil on low heat for almost an hour. According to Bittman's instructions, I added 2 Tablespoons honey, several grinds of fresh pepper, a large amount of salt, and 2 Tablespoons fresh thyme. This was the good part. Then Bittman said to add a cup of pitted, oil-cured black olives and keep sautéeing. The olives had too sharp a flavor and ruined everything. Maybe if I'd sautéed them longer the flavor would have mellowed, but I got hungry and tired of stirring. Everything else tasted fine, though, so George and I agreed to leave out the olives next time. Neither George nor I could taste the thyme and pepper at all because I put them in so early I cooked their flavor away. You need to use dried herbs if you want the flavor to survive a lot of cooking. It's probably fine without them. So here's the altered recipe:

Onion Salad

3 onions, sliced, or 2 onions and some shallots, or whatever
3 Tablespoons olive oil (George Mateljan says you should cook with high-oleic safflower instead)
1 heaping tsp. salt
2 Tablespoons honey
4 Cups bite-sized lettuce greens plus a head of endive, torn into bits
juice of 1 lemon

1. Over low heat, sauté the onions, salt, and honey in the oil for 30 minutes to an hour, until it tastes really good. Let cool a little.

2. Toss the lettuce and endive with lemon juice. Top with onion mixture and serve.

Vegan Subletting/ Camping Meals

I haven't updated for a while because for a week I have not had access to the Internet. In fact I am currently typing away in a North Carolinian Internet café. George and I are subletting a student apartment for a few weeks while we try to find a place to live in Durham. This particular sublet was not furnished with anything except table, chairs, bed, and a shower curtain rod. So we had to bring our kitchen supplies with us. We didn't want to take much, so all we have is a seasoned cast-iron frypan, a cheap pot, a cutting board, a large knife, a small knife, a collander, a wooden spoon, and a steamer basket. For spices we brought salt, black peppercorns in a grinder, and extra virgin olive oil. That's it.

As you may remember, I am keeping vegan for a while to get healthier and lose some weight. So all of the dishes that George and I have invented and cooked for each other are vegan. And some of them have been amazingly tasty. You can probably make many of these while camping as well as long as you have a portable stove. Just make sure not to have leftovers!

For Shabbat I asked George to make food I was sure he would like because of my enormous failed pasta sauce that I had to eat for about 3 meals by myself while George downed cereal. He and I made Meal 1 together and he invented Meal 2 by himself. Here are some quick meals that were successful:

Meal 1:
Asian pear slices
Hodgson Mill whole wheat couscous with garlic seasoning package
swiss chard, stems and leaves

George cooked the swiss chard by first slicing the stems thinly, then sauteed in olive oil until tender. That got mixed into the couscous. He chopped up the leaves and added them with a bit of water into the frypan. He cooked the water off and then cooked the leaves briefly a little longer, squeezed a little lemon juice on them, and served them separately.

Meal 2:
broccoli, crown and stem
Yukon gold potatoes with garlic and parsley

George sliced the broccoli stems and heads into pieces of roughly equal size, then boiled them in salted water until tender.
For the potatoes, George boiled them in their skins until nearly tender, poured off the water, and cooked them a little more in the pan to dry off the outside. Then he set them aside. He sautéed
whole garlic cloves (peeled) in olive oil for several minutes. He cut up the potato into big chunks and added it to the garlic with salt and pepper, then cooked the whole mixture until golden brown. Chopped parsley was added right before serving.

Edamoccoli Soup

Edamoccoli Soup is the name George gave to his soybean broccoli soup. I'm not going to claim that this soup is delicious; George concocted this swamp-green potion from tired scraps expiring in dark corners of the refrigerator. On a day when we were almost out of food, he wanted to give me something healthy with a lot of folate, something vegan. This soup is indeed vegan. It's the sort of food I used to imagine vegans eating back when I considered pepperoni pizza and cheeseburgers proof of the existence of God. I was down with a double helping of spring allergies and a cold, and I asked George to make me soup. He did, and so far I've had four servings. He hasn't had any.

I'm not sure exactly what went into this soup. George told me it involved broccoli, vegetable broth, and lime juice. The edamame were cooked until tender, 2 beans per spoonful on average. Imagine a puréed broccoli soup without cream or fat and with unsalted edamames all over it. That is the soup. He made it out of love, I ate it out of love.

But I added a lot of salt and pepper.

Chai Iced Tea, Worse the 2nd Time

It's not even May yet and it was 85 degrees today! We dug two enormous holes outside in the yard and a good time was had by all. Then we were thirsty, so I decided to make something that Thomas had made for us before quite successfully, Chai Iced Tea.

The first clue I had that this drink might be problematic was the goopiness. Sweetened condensed milk has the same viscosity as honey and tamarind concentrate, and I dripped it all over the glasses and the paper towel. And the counter. And my pants. And the carpet. Sigh.

My second clue came in the form of three bonded-for-life ice cubes in the shape of an L. They wouldn't fit in the glasses and they wouldn't break, so we ended up with fewer ice cubes than we needed. So the iced tea was too warm, which is probably the worst thing that can happen to iced tea!

The right kind of chai would have made a big difference, I think, but this time we had a vanilla-spiced Indian chai. In my opinion fruitier chai (with orange zest, for example) goes much better with sweetened condensed milk than do vanilla notes. Two Leaves and a Bud chai has been excellent in the past for chai iced tea. Thomas used four of their bags per glass pitcher and steeped for quite a while.

Probably I should have steeped more tea bags as well. The steeped tea needs to be very strong and bitter to balance well with the sweetness of the sweetened condensed milk.

I think ultimately it would have been better if I had tasted as I went. And if Thomas the lab science whiz were here with me. You never know when titration skills will come in handy!

Still, I tolerated it fairly well. Chris drank half of his glass with a positive attitude, and even George downed it without comment. The last time we made this (with Thomas in charge), it was much better, but then we experimented a lot and also chilled the tea and the condensed milk overnight in the refrigerator before mixing. The ideal is a consistency and flavor similar to Thai Iced Tea (pictured above), but if you don't have Thai tea—and most people don't—then a good spicy fruity chai is a delightful substitute.

Article on how to make authentic Thai Iced Tea.

Chai Iced Tea (adapted from Mark Bittman's recipe in How to Cook Everything).

Ingredients:
Your favorite chai bags with orange flavor
sweetened condensed milk, chilled overnight if possible
ice cubes, lots

Directions:
Steep several bags of chai in boiling water in a glass pitcher until the tea is very strong and bitter. Remember it will be diluted by melting ice and sweetened condensed milk. Take out tea bags and chill until cold. If you are in a hurry make sure you have a large amount of ice cubes. Then somehow you have to thoroughly mix 1/4th to 3/4th inch sweetened condensed milk in your glass with the chai and a lot of ice cubes. Good luck with that. I mixed the milk and tea first and then put the ice cubes in, but then the bottom stayed warm a long time. I think it's best to pour the liquid over the ice cubes, so maybe you need to mix the liquids in a separate container first, and keep tasting until it's almost perfect but needs a little dilution by ice cubes.
Best with a large straw and some large bobo tapioca pearls.

Apple Cabbage

For many Americans, the idea of cabbage for dinner is not appealing. "Oh great," they grumble, "Poor person food. Boring and boringly healthy. No thanks." Never mind that tawdry carnival stir-fried noodles are pathetic without cabbage. Never mind that cabbage comes in four different alluring varieties. Never mind that cabbage coyly curls into itself until a sharp knife slices it into springy, crinkly strips. Most Americans are simply not interested.

Ashkenazi Jews are different. Mention cabbage to such Jews and they hum with affection. Cabbage is comfort food that one's bubbe's bubbe used to make. As stuffed cabbage, in borscht, or floating in chicken soup, cabbage transmits Love from Jewish parent to Jewish child.

Let me just say that if you don't give a gosh-golly-darn about cabbage, you won't enjoy this recipe. This isn't one of those cabbage-for-people-who-hate-cabbage recipes. This recipe exudes pure essence of cabbage. It looks, smells, and tastes like cabbage.

Mopsy loves it. I'm rather fond of it myself.

Apple Cabbage

1/2 small head red cabbage, halved, cored, and thinly sliced
1 onion, thinly sliced
1/4 teaspoon fennel seed
1/4 Cup apple cider
1 Teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 Granny Smith apple, thinly sliced

1. Combine all ingredients except Granny smith in a large pot. Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally until vegetables are mostly soft.
2. Reduce heat and add Granny smith. Cook until everything is tender. Serve hot, room temperature, or cold.

Vegetable Stir-Fry

I should probably tell you that when I asked for feedback, the actual response to my mashed potatoes was:
Ezra--"I'm a fan."
Bill--"I'm glad it's not too rich."
Mopsy--"Eh, I'm not that impressed."

So there you go. Thoroughly humbled, I created my stir-fry the following night with the greatest of care. I remembered advice received from Vegetarian Times Magzine, George Mateljan's cookbook The World's Healthiest Foods, and a cooking secret from my favorite Thai restaurant, Little Plearn Thai in Berkeley, CA. Responses to this stir-fry were as follows:

Ezra--"That looks fantastic."
Bill--"Mmmfrarmph" (chewing)
Mopsy--"This is the best stir-fry I have ever had."

I called George to crow about it.
George--"You are getting a big head."

He's right. But it really was an excellent stir-fry.

Sarah's Kosher for Passover Stir-Fry
Just remember not to dry the vegetables after washing them.

Ingredients:
ketchup (kosher for Passover OK, I used Gefen brand)
salt
pepper
juice of one orange
Optional vegetables (I used all of them):
2 onions, sliced
1 stalk broccoli, quartered and cut into 2-inch pieces
a bit of cauliflower, quartered and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 bunch asparagus, woody ends discarded, snapped into 3-inch pieces
1 orange bell pepper, sliced
1 package shiitake mushrooms, stemmed, cut into bite-size pieces
1 package sliced button mushrooms
1 can straw mushrooms, drained and rinsed
1 can baby corn, drained and rinsed

Directions:
1. In a very large skillet or wok, saute onions slowly in cottonseed or canola oil a quarter-inch deep.
2. When onions are golden and oozy, mix in salt, pepper, and ketchup to taste.Push onions to the side.
3. Add cauliflower and broccoli. Cover skillet tightly. Stir occasionally. When the broccoli tastes about 3 minutes away from being tender, add asparagus, bell peppers, and shiitake and button mushrooms. Cover again. Stir occasionally.
4. When asparagus is tender, turn off heat. Add more ketchup, salt, and pepper to taste. Add canned vegetables and mix everything together thoroughly. Toss juice of the orange over everything. Cover tightly to allow canned vegetables to heat up a little.
5. Serve immediately to 3 to 5 people. Bask in the glow of their admiration.

Mashed Potatoes and Sauteed Mushrooms

I know, I know. Mashed potatoes? For real? Everyone knows how to make mashed potatoes.

But I never made them at all before today because I tend not to enjoy mashed potatoes. I never have in my whole life. The flavor might as well be styrofoam, the texture is unbelievably boring, and usually it's filled with fatty dairy products. The only reason I eat them is because I like gravy, specifically George's outer-space-awesome mushroom gravy.

However, my 2007 Thanksgiving in Berkeley, CA changed all that. I invited several of my Mills College graduate student buddies over for a very vegan potluck. Of course I turned once more to Myra Kornfeld's Voluptuous Vegan for inspiration: amaranth-studded cornbread, stuffed delicata squash, cranberry-pear molds, and lima bean gravy. This was the second time in my life that I enjoyed a vegetarian Thanksgiving, and both times were startlingly successful.

But I digress. My friends also brought voluptuous food. Kiyomitsu stewed apples in wine while Sally made both a dessert of oranges, mint, and honey and a side dish of mashed potatoes. For the first time in my life I really loved mashed potatoes.

Two years later we find our heroine staying in D.C. with Mopsy, Bill, and Ezra during Passover. Because it's Passover, we don't eat wheat, corn, soy, beans, string beans, peanuts, and peas. Because I'm on a vegan diet I furthermore don't eat eggs, milk, or butter. Bill has celiac disease. I was scratching my head trying to come up with things I could cook that would fall within these rather stringent parameters, and finally I came up with a few things. One of those things was mashed potatoes. I made this version up myself!

Mashed Potatoes

yukon gold potatoes, scrubbed carefully
sea salt
olive oil
fresh herb like rosemary, minced
1 head garlic plus 1 clove garlic.

Directions:
1. Put whole potatoes into a pot and cover with water. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer. Check with fork. When fork slides easily all the way to the middle, remove potato. The potatoes will probably finish at different times.
2. Meanwhile preheat oven to 350. Peel off all but the last layer of skin on a head of garlic. Cut off the top fourth or third of the head so that part of each clove is exposed. Drizzle the tops with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Wrap in aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour.
3. In a small bowl, mix extra virgin olive oil, 1 clove minced garlic, minced rosemary and sea salt. Let sit until potatoes are done.
4.Crush potatoes (with skins still on) with bottom of a 1 Cup dry measuring cup. Then cut them up further with a fork.
5. Pour oil and herb mixture over potatoes and mix, tasting to make sure it doesn't get too oily or salty.
6. Remove head of garlic from oven and unwrap from foil. With a heat resistant device, turn garlic head upside down over potatoes and squeeze from bottom of clove. The roasted garlic should just ooze out where you cut it. Mix it all together, add salt to taste, and serve hot.

Then--I can't believe I was such a genius to invent two successful dishes on the same night--I sauteed oyster mushrooms in a tiny bit of white wine and water and sea salt, and they were fantastic. The trick is to cut up the pieces small enough so that they'll cook evenly but not so small that they won't be delightfully chewy. Then you cook them slowly until they've given off all their water and dried up all the liquids in the pan. They'll sear slightly and it will be delicious. Bill scraped the bowl with his fork, they were that amazing. Or maybe I told him to eat up and stared at him until he did.

I served this with homemade applesauce. Bill and Mopsy also ate that old Passover stand-by brisket which, being brown squares in brown sauce, just didn't live up to the standards of my gorgeous vegan masterpieces. Salivate on that, you meatetarians!